


Little Ball of Fluff

by Embli



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, Modern Middle Earth, Pre-Slash, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:37:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embli/pseuds/Embli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thorin decides the best solution to stop feeling forever alone is obviously to get a pet. On his nephew's insistance he goes with a rabbit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Ball of Fluff

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Omnomnomnivore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omnomnomnivore/gifts).



> This is a christmas present for my best friend. Since she is also my beta, expect tense shifts and a weird mix between British and American English without her.

It wasn't that Thorin was unhappy with his life. He had a job he liked, a pretty nice place to live, great friends, loving family... He wasn't ungrateful for all that. But sometimes, he just felt... lonely.

When he spent time with paired up friends only to go home alone. When he couldn't help but compare himself to his siblings.

Dís was married and expecting her second child. Frerin just moved in with his boyfriends. As in, two of them. Thorin has never had a romantic relationship with even one person. Hell, he has never been kissed. Not even when drunk or in a game as a teenager.

He knows that's not all there is to life. He _knows_ that. It just seems like everyone expects the whole marriage, 2.5 children and a white picket fence deal. Sometimes he wonders if people pity him for being alone. If they think he's only interested in his career, maybe.

Thorin scowls at the frame that refuses to hang straight on the wall. It was Dís who convinced him his flat could need a little decorating, and since Thorin doesn't really know what he's doing when it comes to design he figured some fake plants and a bunch of photos whould do.

Only the stupid pictures keep getting crocked. He'll right them and as soon as he turns his back they tilt off again. Like they're deliberatly mocking him.

He mutters under his breath and tries again. Frerin smiles at him from the photo, holding hands with Dwalin and Nori. None of the others looks quite so disgustingly happy, but Thorin knows them. Recoginzes Nori's smirk - as if he had won a prize, rather than Thorin's brother and best friend - and Dwalin, who... actually looks annoyed. But then, so does Thorin in a lot of the family pictures. He knows better than most that you don't need to smile to be content.

Only content is the last thing Thorin is, at the moment. He is debating throwing out the photos and give up on the home decor thing. He's got all the pictures on Facebook, after all. Why does he need them on his actual walls? The only people who ever come here know him well enough that they shouldn't care.

But maybe they think it's a sign of what a lonely failure he is. And maybe it is. A sign. When you let yourself be defeated by inanimate objects.

Fine then. Fine. If he can't have a partner or a herd of children or even hang frames right, he'll get a pet. Take care of another living creature. One that will keep him company. A dog, maybe. He always wanted a dog when he was a kid.

***

Filí demands he get a "Bunny rabbit, Uncle Thorin! Bunny rabbit!"

Ori demands he reads a lot of books and buys all the stuff a pet would need before getting one.

After spending a few weeks learning about rabbits - including all the horrible illnesses they can get - the whole prospect seemed... scarier than it did at first. Thorin never really had a bigger responsiblity than babysitting Filí for a few hours and an animal can't talk to tell you when you shrew up.

But he does end up in one of the local petshops. Partly because Thorin can't stand the idea of disapointing his nephew and partly because everyone he knows had gotten really invested in the as of yet un-bought rabbit. They kept asking him what he was going to name the animal and rejecting all of his resonable sudgestions, like Rabbit or Gold. ("Really, Thorin? Really? You would go for the most unimaginative animal name in all of dwarven history?") Iimul didn't fly either. ("Saying it in Khuzdul doesn't make it better.")

The bell over the door is a recording of a cat meowing. Someone probably thought they were being funny. Thorin glares up at it, on principle. When he turns to look around the shop again, a Hobbit has appeared like magic. Thorin tells himself he didn't startle at the sudden appearance. Dwarves don't starle. At least not over something so trivial.

The Hobbit has bare, hairy feet with matching curls on his head. He's a bit round and rosy-cheeked, like most Hobbits Thorin has met, and he wears a t-shirt with the pet shop's logo on it. A name plate pronounce him to be Bilbo Baggins.

"Good morning!" the Hobbit - Baggins - says cheerily. "Anything I can help you with today?" He smiles. Like Thorin has done something nice, and not just entered his workplace. Thorin wonders if it's a Hobbit thing or a working in retail thing.

"Ah," Thorin says. "I...'m looking into buying a rabbit."

"Alright." More smiles. But then, Thorin just said he would buy something.

"And would you be buying the rabbit itself from here, or were you thinking you'd get the stuff here and then the animal directly from a breeder?" Should Thorin have done that? Is that how it works?

"No, I already have a cage and everything the books said I would need." There. Thorin has done his homework, and now Baggins knows it too. No getting animals all willy-nilly, here.

"Wonderful! If you'd come out back..."

There is a glas door at the back of the shop that leads to a small courtyard. It has a garden with what looks like vegetables, despite being in the city. Against the wall there are about ten or fifteen cages. They are all green or brown with wire doors and he can see rabbits inside them, coming to look what's happening.

"Now," Baggins says. "I sell young animals that I get directly from breeders I know. They are all used to people but not necissarily as tame as an older rabbit would be. You will need to spend plenty of time with it, especially in the beginning. Are you planing or keeping it indoors or out?" Baggins keeps talking. Asking questions and telling him things. Most of it Thorin recognize from the books. But it also feels like Baggins is just making conversation, like he can't meet someone without socialicing. In fact, he also talks to the rabbits. Especially when he takes one out for Thorin to hold. It's grey and tiny and feels too fragile to be alive, yet it looks at Thorin with curiosity.

"Ah," Thorin says awkwardly. "Hello, Master Rabbit." Baggins beams at him.

***

In the end, Thorin gets two little bunnies. The grey one and a speckled black and white. He's not quite sure how it happend. Maybe it was Bilbo Baggins and his smile. The one that makes Thorin faintly warm to remember.

Maybe he will go back to the shop later. He will have to buy new pellets and things once in a while. He could do it at the supermarket, but it doesn't have Baggins. Bilbo. And Thorin... well. Thorin would like to get to know him.

He names the rabbits Silver and Gold, just to spite Dís.


End file.
